Monday, June 24, 2013

A question from a Data Points reader

A reader asked why employers are going to drop health coverage after penalties are introduced when they can drop health coverage today with no penalty. 

That's a good question. The answer depends on the context. Right now, without Obamacare, if a company cancels health insurance it puts employees in a serious bind. It is virtually certain that sicker and older employees will have difficulty getting coverage, especially comparable coverage at anything like comparable cost. So historically companies haven't dropped coverage not because it wouldn't save them money, but because there wasn't an acceptable alternative. Even companies under financial stress have kept coverage in effect in the past.
 
I anticipate--and we'll just have to wait to see if I'm right--that once Obamacare is up and working, companies will have a choice that they didn't have before. It will suddenly become practical for them to drop coverage where it was not practical before. And that just may prove enough of an impetus for companies, perhaps lots of companies, to drop coverage. If you have any experience with how company management views health coverage, you are well aware how much companies have been frustrated by ever rising premiums that either reduced profits or, if borne by employees, resulted in unhappy workers. In many cases cases both happened.

Nobody knows what the outcome will be; but it will certainly be an interesting experiment.  As they crunch the numbers, corporate executives will have to make educated guesses about whether the coverage employees can buy is any good, how much employees can afford and how much the company can afford. Whether a firm is financially stressed will play a part. Dropping health coverage and effectively cutting wages is one way to reduce costs. Perhaps most important, corporate decision makers will take into account what other companies do. Unwittingly, the government is about to unleash a huge experiment in game theory.

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